12 Replies - 1403 Views - Last Post: 14 September 2011 - 11:15 PM

MacBook Pro

Posted 07 September 2011 - 11:08 AM

So I decided to purchase the mac book pro 15 inch laptop and am loving every minute of it. I was very skeptical about the switch from PC to a mac but the functionality of the mac compared to the PC has surpassed my expectations. It's so user friendly...I now understand why people say "once you go mac you don't go back." I do have one question though that I haven't quite been able to figure out, any help would be appreciated: I connected my external hard drive and opened it up, but once I had it opened I couldn't figure out how to add a new folder...I tried creating a new folder on my desktop and then dragging it into my hard drive icon on the desktop but that failed. when I right clicked (control + click) there was no option for a new folder? Also when I tried saving a word document to my hard drive it was unable to save it to my hard drive...

Re: MacBook Pro

Posted 08 September 2011 - 07:50 AM

I love Mac and have for years. With that said, ordering customized configurations from Apple is a HUGE waste of money. Apple charges 2-5 times the going rate for memory, hard drives, optical drives and so on.

The best thing to do is buy the basic computer from Apple, then buy memory from someplace like Data Memory Systems, hard drives and such from Frys or your local/favorite computer shot. I saved hundreds in upgrading my MacPro

Re: MacBook Pro

How much was your mac? I love the idea of getting one but for a 17inch with 8gb ram and a 750GB HDD its £2,300.00! That is just way to much.

I could build a 12core, 32GB DDR3 beast cheaper than that.

Is it worth the price tag?

One thing I've noticed is that American companies like to pretend that 1$ ≈ 1€ ≈ 1₤, and gain a tidy profit from overseas sales. It's unfortunate, but our MBPs don't cost nearly that much. The same one you mentioned would be about ₤1,700 with today's exchange rate. Which is still exorbitant, but possibly worth it depending on what you want.

Re: MacBook Pro

Posted 09 September 2011 - 12:24 PM

I'm not sure it's the American companies.
I just got back from 2 weeks in Blackpool England.
I noticed that everything seemed to be priced the same at first.
McDonalds breakfast deal was 3.99 pounds.
A bottle of Coke out of a machine was 1 pound.
A 4gig memory stick was 7.99 pounds and so on.

Then you do the conversion and find that everything is actually 70% more expensive.

Then you find out that minimum wage is 6 pounds where we have 6 dollars. So in relative terms, the price is the same for locals.

When I was living in Australia I notices how expensive things were. A couple years ago it was cheaper to buy a Pontiac g6 here than it was to buy the Holden in Australia - but the Pontiac *was* the Holden, made in Australia and imported into the USA and re-badged - and it was still cheaper here than where it was made.

The more I dug into things, the more I learned just how much those governments tax everything. Even worse than the current USA regime is taxing us. Did you know that in England you have to pay a 145 pound "TV viewing tax" every year in order to own and operate any device capable of displaying TV shows? That is in addition to paying your TV service provider.

Australia has a huge import duty for all computer technologies imported into the country. That's why PC's and hard drives and video cards etc. are so frakin' expensive there. My son was able to spend US$ 2k to build a monster PC here, for something bigger and more advanced than anything he could assemble there for the equivelent of US$ 3k.

When you think about it, those countries almost have to do it. Australia for example has the same land mass/footprint as the USA. But a population of 21 million compared to the USA's 360 million. That's a tax base equal to the greater Los Angeles basin, to run a country the size of the USA. People still expect roads that go from coast to coast... internet and phone services that cover the entire country... Hospitals and reservoirs... emergency contingency funds... a military... airports... But it all has to be funded on a tax base 1/17th of the USA.

So do the math - they have to rape their citizens to provide for them.

Re: MacBook Pro

Posted 13 September 2011 - 08:46 PM

tlhIn`toq, on 09 September 2011 - 02:24 PM, said:

When I was living in Australia I notices how expensive things were. A couple years ago it was cheaper to buy a Pontiac g6 here than it was to buy the Holden in Australia - but the Pontiac *was* the Holden, made in Australia and imported into the USA and re-badged - and it was still cheaper here than where it was made.

The more I dug into things, the more I learned just how much those governments tax everything. Even worse than the current USA regime is taxing us. Did you know that in England you have to pay a 145 pound "TV viewing tax" every year in order to own and operate any device capable of displaying TV shows? That is in addition to paying your TV service provider.

So do the math - they have to rape their citizens to provide for them.

Interesting that any taxation is "rape" to you. Why such violent imagery for a method of providing services that, by your description, is working pretty well for the citizens of those countries? Seems to me that the people in those countries view a turn to a more American system - being forced in Greece and Italy, for example - as the real violation. You don't see Finns rioting in the streets to overthrow their health care system, but if you eliminate services in any country but this one, people will take to the streets to defend the way things are. Is this, maybe, some sort of Stockholm syndrome? Have they simply come to love their violators?

Re: MacBook Pro

Posted 14 September 2011 - 07:19 AM

Its not that *any* taxation is "rape" to me. I'm talking about grossly excessive taxation. You know, the same type of taxation that made people leave England and found the USA, to begin with.
Since this is way off topic

Spoiler

I merely mean that their are a few governments out there that increase their taxation every year... make more new taxes... more... more... more... without providing improved services for the improved income they are receiving. At that point the tax payer is just getting bent over.

Stockholm syndrome... Shifting baseline... its all a sign of short memories in my opinion. If the changes are made slowly then people don't notice.

40 years ago an American family of four could live on just the father's salary, while still being able to take a vacation every year or two. Today the same family is lucky to similar life style with both parents working full time.

There are certain things one can look at an just recognize as 'wrong'.

If I can buy a car made in a foreign country and shipped here cheaper than it can buy bought in it's native country - then something fishy is going on.

If the amount of money being taken goes up every year, but the services provided goes down every year - then there is a problem. Usually resulting from graft or gross mismanagement.

If one government is able to provide for its people on 20% and another government require 50% for the same quality of service - you have to closely examine WTF is going on.

I've worked for the gov't and I've worked private sector. I think most people would say that gov't just doesn't have any idea of how to run on a budget or implement policy that makes sense. Take these common examples:

Any money not spent from the 2011 budget is taken away from the 2012 allotment. Therefore it is the best interest of the agency to spend it all whether it needs to or not. There is no incentive to run under budget. But private sector rewards managers for saving money by giving them a percentage of the savings as their bonus, and the employees' profit sharing checks go up if they save the company money.

Gov't employees are not subject to the enforced retirement plan of the citizens paying the taxes (social security). Gov't employees are part of a private retirement plan. So they have no vested interest in making social security work.

Being a politician means you have an AMAZING benefits package because it is paid for by the tax payers. Everything from Gov't paid transportation from meeting to meeting, to gov't funded gyms to gov't barbers on staff providing free hair cuts. Why? What do these people do any differently than private sector executives who pay for their own haircuts? Being a politician isn't a life of sacrifice for the greater good of the people. If anyone should have all the amazing benefits it should be the cops and soldiers who put their lives on the line every day they go to work to make life safe for the rest of us.

Because none of this take-take-and-spend practices actually affect the politicians making the decsions they don't see a reason to re-examine the policies. Politics is no longer about leadership. Its about re-election. The right decision might be to withhold gov't paid medical services to anyone proving positive for illegal drug use. But that would be an unpopular decision so nobody will every bring it up.

We've had 5 previous presidents who rounded up and deported all the illegal immigrants during major recessions/depressions. It was unpopular with some, but necessary for the betterment of our own people and the strength of our country's economy. That's just fact. But you won't see this president doing that. He just taxes more to give away more. He wants to spend his way out of a depression. Any poor person will tell you how well that won't work. Let's bail out Bank of America for $30 BILLION because it will stop the collapse of the banking system. Then not investigate when 11 months later they issue $30 BILLION in bonuses to their management. WTF? This is what I mean by short memories. They did it. They got away with it. So what's to stop them from doing it again with the next generation's taxes?

The generation after us won't know any different. They'll be paying 40% taxes for 30% of the services we receive today. But they won't know any different because it will be what they grow up with. That will be normal for them. So when their politicians takes away another 3-10% it won't seem like so much. It's just 5% or so. And they will be asked to "tighten our belts" a little. Just as we have been told.

Everyone is too busy voting for the next American Idol to take the time to research which politician to vote for. And they are just fine with that.